Proper Food Safety

Knowing and practicing proper food safety can go a long way toward ensuring your good health. Many illnesses caused by food could be prevented if people knew how to correctly handle and store food. Suffering from food poisoning can not only be painful, it can be deadly.

A lot of food safety information can be chalked up to common sense that anyone can follow. Keeping hot foods hot and cold foods cold is a simple way of remembering some safety tips, but there’s also rules to follow when handling and storing foods that allow people to stay well when eating them.

By far, meats are one of the biggest areas of concern in food safety. This is because most of us have little control over where our meat comes from or how it’s handled during processing and delivery. Still, once the meat is in our possession, it’s wise to:

• Wash hands before and after: When handling meat, it’s important to thoroughly wash your hands before and after.
• Sanitize work surfaces: If you use a chopping block or countertop to cut meat, spraying these surfaces down with a sanitizing agent afterwards is vital to prevent the spread of bacteria.
• Cook to a safe temperature: Different meats will have a safe internal temperature that will kill harmful microorganisms when eaten. Using a meat thermometer is a good idea to make sure your chicken, pork or ground beef reaches this temperature. Generally, safe temperatures range from 145°F to 180°F.
• Don’t thaw out meat on counters: When taking meat from the freezer to thaw, don’t just sit it out on a counter. Either place it in the refrigerator to thaw over the course of a day or so, or place it in a container of cold water, changing the water out every few hours to keep it cool.

Although vegetables and fruits don’t come from animals and therefore aren’t subject to the same types of diseases animals may carry, you still need to take precautions before eating these foods. The spinach e coli scare should have taught us all a lesson in that regard. Some proper food safety involving vegetables and fruits:

• Wash thoroughly: When dealing with fruits that have skin that will be ingested, it’s important to wash the skin with cool water. Some products are available and made especially for sanitizing fruits and vegetables, but water and scrubbing are generally seen as sufficient for cleaning these foods. Use a soft bristle brush sold in kitchenware stores if it makes you feel more comfortable.
• Use separate chopping blocks: It’s good practice to use a different chopping block for your meats and vegetables.

If you have to take food from one place to another, using coolers and thermoses will help keep foods at safe temperatures.

• Coolers: Fill a cooler or ice chest with ice or ice packs to maintain a cold environment. Pack food tightly and as soon as you arrive at your destination, place it in a refrigerator or on ice. This is important for uncooked as well as cooked meats.

Coolers can also be used for carrying foods that need to stay warm, but this isn’t safe if the transport time will be hours long.

For outside events where food may be out for a long period of time, practicing food safety correctly will help keep anyone from becoming sick.

• Cover food when not in use.
• Diners should wash hands before eating.
• Keep cold foods on ice.
• Don’t leave meats out.
• On hot days, whatever isn’t eaten in one to two hours should be thrown away.

Anyone who’s in charge of preparing meals or serving food should always wash their hands before and afterwards.

Following simple steps when preparing or eating food will keep you, your family and guests well. Anyone who’s had to suffer food poisoning knows how miserable an experience that is, so whatever methods we employ to prevent that will be worth it.

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